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It’s time to step up your e-mail game. If you run a business, especially an online business, you need to read this.

In one of my many college courses, we discussed how the world is getting smaller. It was my Globalization course, to be exact. We weren’t chatting about how the world was physically becoming smaller, but rather that technology makes it easier to communicate with people the next state over, across the country, and even the world. We no longer have to wait for weeks to sail across the ocean to deliver a message, or for the post to deliver it. People are merely an e-mail away, making it easy to effectively and quickly communicate. In essence, the world is becoming “smaller” because of this and nothing seems too far out of reach anymore.

Technology is pretty dang fabulous, right? But let’s face it — it can be tricky, too. Writing an e-mail seems easy, in theory. You type some text into a box, sometimes proofread it, and then send it off. What happens next? This magical process delivers your e-mail to (hopefully) the intended recipient, and you go about your business. What about communicating your point, or making your e-mail personable?

For a business, this is crucial. You have to be professional, be personable, and you have to communicate effectively through your keyboard. Making all three happen in a single e-mail? Not everyone can manage that.

Let’s take a look at a few tips to help you nail your e-mail game.

Greeting.

Your e-mail greeting is the introduction to your e-mail. You should consider the person you’re talking to when you add your greeting — is it your mom, your client, or your boss? All three might have very different greetings. For me, I want each e-mail to feel like we’re having a conversation in my living room or at a coffee shop. I’ve developed a brand with Autumn Lane Paperie in which people (I hope) feel warmth and as if they’re talking with a friend. It’s simply who I am. I usually start off with “Hey <client name>!” because I like having a casual, open interaction with my clients. I find that attempting to communicate more professionally and in a more sterile manner really hinders my creative process. Ultimately, I want to put my clients at ease and make them feel as though they can communicate with me honestly.

I didn’t initially plan for my e-mails to take shape the way they have — I think it’s just who I am, and when I thought about changing it to be more professional…it just didn’t sit well with me! Yes, I’m a professional providing professional services…but really, I just love what I do, and I want people to be at ease when they’re doing business with me.

Pleasantry.

This is that little opener in your e-mail that tells your client you’ve thought of them, how they are, and what they’ve been up to. You should only use a pleasantry if you genuinely care, otherwise, it’s going to seem forced. If your client mentioned that they spent their weekend camping with their family, it would be totally cool to tell them that you hope they had a great time camping. If they’ve been unwell, it would be awesome to tell them you hope they’re feeling better.

I try to use a pleasantry as much as possible, but it’s often not even a thought or something I consider — it usually just happens, because I really love hearing what my clients have been up to. It’s great for my creative process to know who my clients are and what they enjoy outside of what I’m working on for them. It enables me to inject bits of their personality in what I’m working on so that they can connect with it even more, and really take ownership of their brand.

Gratitude.

Appreciate their response or their feedback? That’s important. Let them know, especially if they’ve gone above & beyond to answer the questions you’ve asked them or respond to something you’ve provided them. It may seem like a no-brainer, but if you leave out that gratitude part, your e-mail will lose its warmth. Additionally, you don’t want to make your client feel that you don’t care about what they said or that you’ve taken for granted that they’ve made an effort to collaborate and respond.

Information, Details, Answers.

This is the meaty part of your e-mail. Sending an attachment? Explain what you’ve attached, why they need to look at it, what feedback you might need, and so on. Answer questions that were in their e-mail, and re-state anything to clarify. Spending an extra five minutes on that e-mail now will save you fifteen minutes later when you have to go back to clarify because you didn’t do that the first time. Re-stating ensures that you’re clear on what was asked, and so that your client knows that you’ve taken the time to read their e-mail.

Have a lot of questions to answer? Use a bulleted list, numbered list, or the good ol’ copy/paste with answers in bold. Do what works for you and what will make your e-mail as clear as possible.

Call to Action.

Request your response, and be clear about it. Your e-mail might contain a ton of info & details with no specific questions, but you still need your client to confirm information or agree that they’re on board. Don’t leave that to them to decide whether or not a response is necessary — ask them for one.

You don’t have to be stuffy about it and say, “Please respond ASAP.” or even super rigid like “A response is requested immediately.” A simple “Let me know what you think!” or “Tell me your thoughts!” should do the trick. If all else fails, simply pose your question to them: “What do you think?”

Related to this, if you require a response in a timely manner, ensure that you’ve provided a time frame in which you’re hoping to have a response. Don’t leave it to anyone’s imagination!

There are, of course, other things you should consider with your e-mail that aren’t related to the content of your e-mail.

Tone.

I’m guilty of this just as much as the next guy or gal — reading tone into a message. At the end of the day, you need to ensure that you’ve done your part to ensure your clients read your message the way you intend it to be read. A great deal of that is how you provide your details, ask your questions, and ensure that you’ve communicated adequately the points you’re trying to make. This keeps anyone from reading tone in that isn’t there. However, you can’t control how anyone else composes their e-mail. Keep an open mind, and realize that you might be a bit reactionary if you take offense to a statement that could be read any number of ways.

Punctuation.

Punctuation might help a bit with the tone issue. Selecting the appropriate punctuation will aid in deciding how a message could be read.

Take a look at this:

It’s ok. Meh, it’s alright.

It’s ok? You can do that?

It’s ok! No problem, that’s cool!

its ok I acknowledge that but don’t care enough to say more.

Furthermore, punctuation helps establish where one thought ends, and the next begins, and it helps clarify your thoughts. Have you ever been sent an e-mail that was one giant paragraph of a run-on sentence? It hurts my head when I get those, and I often have to copy/paste the e-mail into another window and separate it myself to decipher it. I used to be a linguist in my previous job; I don’t want to do that again.

The Return Key.

Similar to punctuation, make use of your return key to separate your ideas and paragraphs. A wall of text can be rather daunting for people, especially if you suck at using punctuation.

Proofread.

THIS. So much this!! I’m not a robot by any means, and I still make mistakes or don’t catch typos, but I can’t even begin to tell y’all how many typos that I’ve fixed that saved me from a ton of embarrassment! Proofread your e-mails. Spelling, clarity, and making sure that your ideas make sense. I have received e-mails that were so bad that I’ve had to ask for clients to restate or resend because it didn’t make sense. Don’t do that, especially related to business!

All in all, e-mail is hugely convenient: instant communication around the world, answering at your convenience, and being able to keep your thoughts in writing. What are some tips you have for your e-mail game that have worked for you?

I want to tell you how to show your creative professional that you value them. I’ll tell you how, SUPER early on in this post, so you don’t have to read further if you don’t want to. (But you should.)

Pay them what they’re asking.

I’ve been in the creative professional realm for years now. I had my start in the photography industry, which meant that I had exposure (Ha!! See what I did there?) to not being taken seriously. Most people assumed I was a MWAC — a mom with a camera — and that I took photos for fun. I did take photos for fun and because I enjoyed it, but I also had every intent of making a living from doing something I loved.

Although I didn’t charge at the outset to build up my portfolio, every other inquiry I had from friends + acquaintances started out with, “I’d love to have my family photos done by you!” It ended with “…but I don’t think we can afford that…if you don’t charge us, you can use the pictures for your portfolio, it’ll be great exposure for you.”

Oh, honey. If only your smiling face put dinner on my table.

I wasn’t terribly surprised to find that it was the same in the graphic design + website world. Once Autumn Lane took off, I had a few friends tell me that they’d make sure they referred me to their friends if I just did a logo for them. I did have a few people that I stuck my neck out for, really giving them the benefit of the doubt. It was a mistake. Hindsight is always 20/20. Never again.

Let me repeat that: NEVER AGAIN.

Forgive me for being angsty about it, but anyone that is a creative professional knows exactly what I’m talking about. You guys get me, right?? What a freaking slippery slope, let me tell you. You do *one* thing for someone, and they expect a second, third, and fourth. “If you can just….” turns into a checklist of things. Meanwhile, you’re sitting there thinking to yourself, “You said this would be easy and simple….” That type of thing can ruin a friendship, for reals. Thankfully, it didn’t ruin any of mine, but I learned quickly that I needed to stand up for myself and my business. Yes. Business. Not hobby.

People, in general, seem to be under the impression that photographers, artists, graphic designers, authors, website designers, and other creative professionals do this type of stuff for fun. I think that it is assumed that we must have a *real* job in the corporate world, or that this is merely a hobby. Let me say this. That free logo doesn’t feed my family. That photo session on the house doesn’t buy my kids’ Christmas presents.

Even worse are the ones that approach you, ready to pay, but want to haggle with you.

I once had a gal that submitted an inquiry about a $25 premade logo, asking for me to throw in a $20 sublogo for free because she found another designer that would. She said — kindly of course — that if I was willing to do that, too, she would give me *her* business. Oh my!! I politely declined, noting that if she wanted to purchase a sublogo along with the premade logo, she had to use a specific link. Needless to say, she didn’t become a client. I was ok with that.

Neither did the girl that messaged me asking us to design her website for free. She claimed to get a ton of traffic on her blog, and thought we should work together — we do the website design for free, and she would make sure all of her blog traffic knew about it.

One of my favorites? The person who messages you, recognizing that you work really hard and that branding is a complex subject… But, they’re broke, so isn’t there a cheaper way to do this?

So, let’s go back to how to show your creative professional you value them and the work they do. Pay them. It’s so simple that it’s ridiculous!! Pay them what they’re asking.

They’ve spent countless hours educating themselves, either formally or informally. They’ve spent countless dollars on equipment & supplies in order to turn their passion into something that they can rely on. Blood, sweat, & tears go into their business.

If you are at all considering hiring someone for the work they do, you’re considering it for a reason. More than likely, it’s because they’re good at what they do, and because you like their style. Asking a creative to come down on price point is very rude — chances are, they’ve worked very hard at honing their craft, and bargaining devalues their work. I truly think that many people don’t realize what a low blow it is to a creative person to hear, essentially, “I love everything about what you do…but I can’t pay you for it / you’re too expensive / but I don’t want to pay for it / but so-and-so is offering it to me for less.”

If the creative professional you’re looking into hiring is out of your price range, there are two things you can do to make it work for both of you:

Payment Plans

Ask about a payment plan and how to split the work / product up. For example, web design isn’t cheap, right? Autumn Lane Paperie different payment options to make it more feasible for our prospective clients. We would much rather hear, “I love your work, can we work out a plan that is good for both of us?” than “Billy Bob Designs said they’d do this for $500 less.”

More often than not, there are options available for bigger ticket items. For our website design, we offer a solution that involves monthly payments. For some of our branding packages, we offer the opportunity to use Paypal Credit as a means of paying off something that is vital to your business’ success.

Wait.

Seriously. Simply, just wait. Save your dollars until you can hire them.

One thing I always mention when I get ranty about this with my family + friends is this… You wouldn’t ask Gordon Ramsay to make you a beef welly for free and give him exposure, would you? (He doesn’t need it.) You wouldn’t ask Justin Timberlake to give you a free concert…would you? Similarly, you wouldn’t walk into any local business or major chain and tell them that you’ll leave ‘em a good review if you get your groceries for free…would you??

Same principle, folks! Speaking for all of the creatives out there — we want to work with you and we want to make beautiful, fabulous things happen — we also want to be respected as professionals, *and* we want to pay the bills, too. If you want quality work done, whether it’s graphic design, family photos, interior design, artwork — you shouldn’t expect a freebie.

Policy writing sucks, right? Those policies that are so tough to write and consider are the very things that will keep your business protected, and extend the same type of protection to your clients. Reasonable, sound policies will actually help your business and establish trust between you & your client. Here are four tips for writing your business policies.

1. Keep it short, & concise.

There are a few things that you should spell out for your prospective clients as you’re writing your business policies:

Your shipping policy, if applicable. State plainly how you will ship, what company you will use, and any time frame information that might apply.

Your refund or satisfaction policy. You need to decide if you will have a satisfaction guaranteed policy, or whether you will dream up a refund policy of your own. Whatever you do, make it clear.

Your privacy policy and how you will handle information that is provided by your client during the purchase process. This includes your client’s name, address, phone number, e-mail address, and so on. Your prospective client will want to know what you plan on doing with that information, and whether or not you plan to share it.

2. Don’t use that legalese stuff, and don’t be angsty or confrontational.

You can write your policies without using legal jargon. It’ll make it way more simple for your prospective clients to understand, and it won’t sound sterile and like a machine wrote it. Angsty or confrontational policies won’t earn you business. Don’t fall into the trap of editing your policies after you’ve had a bad experience with a person and want to avoid it happening again.

3. Make a frequently asked question section somewhere on your website or blog.

Provide a link in your policies to the FAQ! Most of what goes into the FAQ is not policy-related, so you need to draw a clear distinction between your policies and FAQ. If you include your FAQ with your policies, it’s going to overwhelm your prospective client with information when they really just want a quick answer!

4. Make the policies easily accessible.

No one wants to hunt for policies. That makes your business seem shady if it’s not out in the open.

Re-read your policies before you make them a for-real thing. You should feel comfortable and protected by your policy. Similarly, your prospective client should also feel protected by your policy and should not be left with any questions as a result of your policy. Make a point of revisiting your policies every 3-4 months to make sure that it’s still applicable to your business & what you’re doing.

Remind yourself of your own policies, as a business owner, and stick with it.